What’s in a name: Some Dublin street names that survived the chopping board.

Given the never-ending controversies that came with his O’Connell Street column, many Dubliners may be surprised to hear there is a Nelson Street in the city today, named in honour of Horatio Nelson. Located in Dublin 7 in the north inner-city, I walk by it on an almost daily basis, though Sráid Nelson didn’t catch my eye for quite some time.

The renaming of streets in the Irish capital was already long underway by the time Irish independence was achieved in 1922, with an increasingly nationalist Dublin Corporation from the late nineteenth century onwards attempting to reflect nationalist history on the streets of the city. A 1921 ‘Report of the Paving Committee’, contained within the minute books of Dublin Corporation, advocated the following changes among others:

Some suggested street name changes put before the Corporation at the time were accepted, for example renaming Great Brunswick Street to Pearse Street.

Certainly, the issue of renaming particular streets and locations in Dublin continues to pop up to this very day. In recent years some have advocated for example that the quays be renamed after Irish writers, something that was proposed by Gay Mitchell in 2006. This was something Mitchell had first proposed in 1991, and speaking in support of the plan at the time, Tony Gregory remarked “I feel that most Irish people have a pride in their own cultural heritage and very few would have any great interest in the old imperial legacy of Wellington and Essex. I don’t think Burgh Quay is named after Chris de Burgh!”

While the Corporation has proven quite willing to rename streets historically, a few interesting ones like Nelson have survived long into the days of independence.

That Nassau Street managed to retain it’s name is surprising, as the street was only thus named in the eighteenth century, after the coming to power of King William of Orange, who belonged to the House of Orange-Nassau. J.T Gilbert in his classic history of Dublin wrote that in the eighteenth century a life-sized bust of King William III was to be found on this street.

Very oddly, the Irish language name for this street has appeared as both Sráid Nassau and Sráid Thobar Phadraig, with the later reflecting the streets historical name of St.Patrick’s Well Street, after a 12th century well found there. It’s unusual that both names have appeared in street signage historically, and indeed at the very same time on different ends of the street!

One family who are more than honoured in Dublin are the Wellesley’s, and in particular Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington. Wellesley Place, Wellington Road, and Waterloo Road, after the Battle of Waterloo, all reflect the contribution of this family to history. While Dublin folklore suggests Wellington remarked “being born in a stable does not make one a horse”, nowhere on record did he actually make this remark, so perhaps he would actually approve of streets named in honour of him and his family in this city!

It is likely that sheer familiarity alone prevented many streets in the city from being renamed, for example Talbot Street, named in honour of a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the third Earl of Talbot Charles Chetwynd. We’ve previously looked at the movement to rename this street in the 1940s after Irish republican Sean Treacy, a campaign which led to a sustained campaign of flypostering the proposed name over the streetsigns in the area and interruptions of Corporation meetings.

On November 1st 1943, members of the Ailtirí na hÁiseirghe organisation created uproar at a meeting of Dublin Corporation, by shouting from the public galleries while the Corporation was sitting. At the time of the interruptions, the Corporation was discussing the planned removal of Queen Victoria’s statue from Leinster House. One man rose and shouted: “Get rid of all the symbols of slavery in the streets! We demand that Talbot Street be renamed Sean Treacy street. Young Ireland is awakening.”

Often we walk down our streets without knowing who or what their names commemorate, but in a city with such a troubled relationship historically with monuments and statues – it’s interesting that our British past is still often commemorated in the street names around us. Something to think about as you walk down Horatio Nelson’s street.

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30 Responses

Read somewhere that it was O’Connell in the House of Commons who said of the Duke of Wellington that “being born in a stable does not make one a horse” and somehow it has transmogrified into a quote from the Duke himself.

would like to see most of the streets in Ireland (including Northern ireland) named after national movements (NI Civil Rights Avenue, Fenian Road, United Irishmen St),rebellions (1798 Avenue, 1916 St, 1867 Road ), artists and singers (the Dubliners Broadway, Wolfe Tone Quays)with plaques underneath explaining the main points of the name
In NI we could have the Orange Order Right of Way, and the Queen’s Orange Highway, both planted up with orange flowers and shrubs on the verges, maybe with a hint of purple or black (for the royal preceptories) to break the monotony!!!

I don’t think street names should be changed anymore. They reflect our history, for better or worse, and are a reminder and a link to our past. Talbot Street and Nelson Street sound much better than Dana Avenue and U2 Road anyway. Leave the ‘British’ names there. We’ve been calling them that for centuries. Changing them denies our past.

Great post – I hope they just leave them alone as we need to have a link to our past whether we like it or not! My mother always referred to Amiens Street and Kingsbridge Stations in spite of the fact that they were renamed. Love the old street signs you show here – they should be recorded and preserved!

I think it’s amazing that we have a street call “Little Britain Street”. Wales is called “An Bhreatain Bheag” in the Irish Language but I sometimes like to gag that “Little Britain Street” is called after Ireland.

Great post, and very informative. Those readers interested in the story of street name changes in Cork and Dublin may like my book ‘Layers; the Design, History and Meaning of Public Street Signage in Cork and other Irish Cities’ available online from Associated Editions. It focuses on Cork, but there are good illustrations from the capital, Waterford, Kilkenny, etc.

Personally I would love to see most of the old colonial streets renamed. When a tourist is walking around, it’s like they are in some English town, Whitworth Road, Nassau Street, Grafton St etc etc Surely we have enough of our own history to replace these British names. Sure hang on to a few as it is part of our past, but certainly not all of them, we are after all a totally separate country, might be time we slipped out of the shadow of our colonial past.

We in Wales continue to fight for the right to use our native place names rather than than those anglicized distortions of our native language, or those reflecting England’s colonial power and history.England-based building companies continue to ignore our native culture,but we are determined to fight them every step of the way and make our history visible for generations to come.

i smiled when i seen burgh is not named after Chris De Burgh , AND THE old street are better than Dana and U2 ROAD ,BUT IN A DUBLIN CITY NORTH ,SUBURBS THERE ARE ROADS CALLED AFTER ELTON JOHN SLADE AND OTHER BANDS ELTON PARK ROAD ,SLADEMORE ,SO CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT NAME WAS GIVEN TO TYRONE STREET WHEN IT WAS CHANGED I’M SURE IT WAS DUBLIN NORTH , I ALWAYS THOUGHT TALBOT STREET AND MALAHIDE
WAS CALLED AFTER LORD TALBOT DE MALAHIDE ,